HOME RUN (29 page)

Another name. ". . . he works in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas."

When he was Station Officer in Tehran he had once made the long road journey south, and he had been sure that he had thrown off the tail of the S A V A K agents that was supposed to be with him, and he had gone to the home of the official from the Harbourmaster's office. The man had been recruited by a previous Station Officer, and until the Revolution had been of minimal importance, and maintained only because he did not want money. He was pure gold now, a field agent in the office which observed the comings and goings of merchant shipping in and out of the country's chief port. He had gone to the man's small brick house, he had sweated and sat on a floor rug and wondered why the ventilation chimney seemed so inadequate in the blasting Gulf heat. On that occasion, after the wife had scurried in with a tray and glasses holding diluted lime juice and scurried out, the official had told Mattie that he was a democrat, and therefore opposed to the regime of the Shah of Shahs. The Revolution had come, the official had found no democracy from the clerics, he had stayed on the list of active agents and he had begun to grow in importance.

A small, frightened man, who believed that the work he carried out for Mattie was a short step in the long road to bring parliamentary rule to his country. A sandwich with sweet cheese was brought for the prisoner.

Another name given. ". . . he runs a repair workshop in Tabriz for lorries, and he also has contracts to keep the Revolutionary Guards' vehicles on the road."

A basic and human individual, a man who might have been in Mattie's eyes almost a European. The engineer was the sort of fellow who was always popular, perpetually in demand, and he worked all the hours that his God gave him. The engineer had been recruited in Turkey. A good and active Station Officer, long before this academic boy in the job now, had sought him out in a cafe and talked to him when he was over for the collection of a broken-down lorry that would need a new gear box. That Station Officer had been lucky. The son of the engineer's close friend had been shot in the old gaol in Tabriz after a cursory trial by the Komiteh. The engineer had been ready for recruitment. The engineer's pay went into an account at the Etibank in Van, and it was Mattie's business to know that the credit mounted and was never reduced.

Perhaps there was a day on some far horizon in his mind when the engineer would drive out his truck, with his family hidden amongst a cargo. It was useful, the information provided by the engineer. In any time that approached normality it would have been second grade, but they were not normal times, and Iran Desk were pretty damn thankful to have anything coming out of Iran. Mattie had been given a glass of water and a damp towel again soothed the soles of his feet.

It was a good hotel. Charlie could sleep on the pavements with the dossers when he had to, not for the sake of it. The room was £66.50 a night and the best that Leeds could provide. He locked the door behind him. He went along the landing, he was carrying his rucksack by the straps, the two straps twisted around his wrist. He wore his cleanest slacks, a clean shirt and a navy blazer.

There was a man at the end of the corridor, in jeans and a sweatshirt, polishing hard at the muzzle of a fire hose. He didn't look at Charlie and went on with his polishing. Pretty damn obvious . . . Charlie understood. . . . What could be
so
compelling about getting a shine on to a fire hose nozzle?

A lift was waiting for him.

He came out into the hotel lobby. Too crowded for him to spot the watchers, and he wasn't hanging around to search them out. He knew what he was at. He strode across the lobby, not looking right and not looking left, went as though he belonged and hadn't a care in the world. He pushed his way through the revolving doors, then hesitated. It was colder up in the north than in London. There were taxis waiting in line, engines off. He paused on the pavement.

He moved sharply. He ducked back through the swing doors and across the lobby to the staircase.

He went up the stairs three at a time. Six flights to climb.

He went up the stairs like there was no tomorrow, and took the last flight that was to the roof, and he put his shoulder against the stiffness of the fire escape door.

He stepped out on to the flat roof. He skirted the air conditioning machinery. He had no interest in a fine view over factories or the brick terraces or the munificence of the Victorian civic buildings and churches.

He went to the edge of the roof. He looked down on to the street below. He could see the line of parked taxis. His eyes roved. He saw a green saloon that was behind the taxis.

He could see that there were two people in the front seats, and there was the exhaust showing that the engine was idling. He saw that the man who had been polishing the nozzle of the fire hose was now across the street, and his lips were moving and there was no one close enough to hear him.

In his bath, Charlie had remembered that he was a friend of Mr Furniss.

He was going to piss on them.

• * *

"Where the hell is he?"

"Went back up the fire stairs."

"I know he went up the bloody stairs - where did he go?"

"He was coming out and he just turned round."

"I've got eyes myself - where is he now?"

Harlech was across the road from the front of the hotel.

Corinthian was stranded in the hotel lobby.

Token was round the back. "Not a whistle of him here."

There was the local joker in the Sierra, to drive. Keeper thought he was going to be a disaster because he was V A T , and V A T investigators were the pits. When the Head Office came up from the big city they had to put up with whatever they could get, and they needed a local man for the driving.

The V A T man said, "Not a bad start to the day."

The repartee insult was rising in Keeper. The interruption, the insult never spoken.

Corinthian into Keeper's earpiece: "April Eleven to April Five, our Tango One is in the lobby, heading for the front door . . . going through the front door, you should be picking him up . . . "

"Your lucky day," the VAT man said.

Keeper saw Charlie come through the swing doors. He felt the relief jar through him. He saw the target walk towards the first taxi on the rank holding the rucksack. It had been Keeper's opinion that Tango One was a rank amateur, but he didn't know why the target had gone back into the hotel, and he didn't know what he had done there, and he didn't know whether they had all shown out, and he was no longer sure how amateur the target was.

They followed the taxi out of the rank. He told the V A T man that he didn't need a running commentary on the splendours of Leeds, thank you, and he had to shout at the joker to let Token through with the back-up car, and neither Token nor Harlech acknowledged them as they went by and took up prime station behind the taxi. They had the message too.

Perhaps the target was not such a rank amateur after all.

Herbert Stone was used to dealing with middle trade businessmen and government representatives. The boy fitted no pattern that he was used to. Middle trade businessmen came to him from Hamburg or Rotterdam or Barcelona because he had earned a reputation for discretion and efficiency, for putting paperwork into place with speed. Government representatives arrived at his office, once a vicarage, because they depended on his discretion in placing hardware in the hands of people they could not acknowledge.

He dealt with corporations and institutions, not with bearded young men who wore yellow socks, and who saun-tered in with rucksacks, for heaven's sake. And the kid seemed relaxed, as if it were the most normal thing in life to take an InterCity north and then come and chat about taking delivery of armour-piercing hardware.

Herbert Stone followed the principles of the Shavian Andrew Undershaft - he would do business with anyone, offer a realistic price, not trouble himself with principles or politics

. . and the young man had given Mattie Furniss' name, and Furniss's office had confirmed the connection. Century put quite a bit of business his way, matters too delicate for public knowledge. There had not been as many Belfast produced Blowpipe shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles in the mountain valleys of Afghanistan as there had been Californian built Stingers, but the British had been there, their warheads had joined the fireworks, and Stone had been the conduit used by Century to get the missiles into the hands of the Mujahidin, never mind that they generally made a hash of them.

He would be wary, cautious, but never dismissive.

in a neat hand, in pencil, he wrote down the detail of Charlie Eshraq's order. It was a pleasant, airy office. There was no illustration of any matter military on the walls, just watercolour originals of the Yorkshire Dales. He might have been noting the necessary information prior to the issuing of a personal accident policy.

"If I'm to help you, and I'm not at this stage saying that I can, if I'm to help you then there has to be a degree of frankness between us . . ."

"Yes."

"If you lie to me then I might just lie to you. Your problem, you have to trust me. . . . "

"But I am recommended by Mr Furniss, that's your guarantee . . . "

True, that was on the youngster's side, and a surety for him too. "What country do you mean to operate in - where will the weaponry be used?"

"Iran."

No whistle in the teeth, no pursing of the lips. "And the delivery point?"

"Past Turkish Customs, I collect in Turkey."

"What targets for armour-piercing?"

"First target is an armoured Mercedes, 600 series. After that I do not at the moment know."

"Not all to be fired in one engagement?"

Charlie paused, considered. "Each one different. Perhaps more vehicles, not tanks, perhaps buildings."

The scratching of Stone's pencil. "I see."

"So, what should I have?"

For the first time Stone was shaken. A small, puzzled frown escaped him. "You don't know what you want?"

"I'm not a soldier, what should I have?"

Everyone who came and sat in Stone's office knew what they wanted, problem was could they get it. They wanted howitzers, or 81 mm mortars, they wanted white phosphorus shells, or ground-to-air, they wanted attack helicopters, or a Claymore system of ground defence. None of them, his clients, ever asked his advice on what they should have.

"Do you have
any
military experience, Mr Eshraq?"

"None."

The pencil stopped, hovered . . . but it was none of his business. "Light Anti-Tank Weapon. It's called LAW 80.

How many are we talking about?"

Charlie said, "Three, maybe four."

Stone looked up from his notes. "I see. We are talking about a relatively, ah, small order."

"Yes."

There was a crocodile of barges going down the Thames, and seagulls hovering in chaos over the cargo.

The Deputy Director General was concise. "You won't know this man, this Stone, but he's used by us. He's an arms dealer, reliable sort of fellow. Right now Charlie Eshraq is sitting in his office and trying to place an order for a handful of LAW 80 missiles."

"I was never in the forces, what do they do?"

"They bust tanks. . . . Stone rang through two or three days ago to check on Furniss' reference. Miss Duggan told me this and I asked Stone to ring me as soon as Eshraq uppeared. He's trying to buy these missiles to take back with him into Iran. Does he get them, or not?"

The seagulls swirled in aerial combat over the barges. "It would be an illegal exportation, no doubt."

"Yes, but we're not squeamish. Presumably he brought buck heroin in order to pay for these weapons, as soon as he has the weapons he'll be going back inside."

"Shows extraordinary courage." The Director General had a son at university, studying philosophy, and allergic to the lawn mower. "I like young people with purpose and guts."

"That's Eshraq - in full."

"Give them to him. Give him this anti-tank whatever . . ."

The Deputy Director General grimaced. "Quite, but it ignores the problem."

"What problem?"

"The problem of Mattie Furniss. The problem of Mattie talking, spilling under torture what he knows about his agents and about his young protege. Got me?"

The Director General swung away from the window, swivelled his chair.

"I tell you what I think . . . I think Mattie is a very experienced and dedicated officer. I think he's of the old school. I think he'd go to his grave rather than betray his network."

The Deputy Director General murmured, "That's just not realistic, sir. I am afraid all we know today about interrogation techniques tells us that he will, inevitably, brave as he unques-tionably is, talk. Would it help you to meet with our own interrogators, have them to tell you what, exactly, is being done to Mattie?"

"It would not. . . . It is simply that I have a greater faith in the resilience of an old dog. And furthermore, you stand there lecturing me as though you know for certain that Furniss is in an Iranian torture chamber. Well, you don't. We don't.

We haven't the least idea where he is. He may have been kidnapped by Turkish thugs who haven't the slightest notion who he is. He may be with some freelance outfit who simply want to ransom him. Tell me, if you would, how long it has generally taken for any of the extremist sects in Beirut to announce the capture of hostages. They're on to a telephone to Reuter before you can count to ten, or there is no word for months. There is no pattern about which we can be definite. So we'll just play it my way, if you don't mind."

"So, what is your instruction?"

The Director General said, "Eshraq is to have his missiles.

He is to be encouraged to return to Iran. Give him any help he needs, without tripping over the Customs people, if you can."

The Deputy Director General, swearing silently, flushed at the cheeks, went back to his office and spoke to Herbert Stone.

Parrish pounded down the fifth floor corridor of the Lane.

Those who saw him, through open office doors, and those who flattened themselves against the corridor walls to give him room, wondered whether he'd got the trots or whether he'd heard the Four Minute Warning. He charged into the ACIO's office, and the ACIO had an Audit team with him, and none of the Audit team complained, just packed their briefcases and left. The door closed behind Bill Parrish. He didn't wait to collect his thoughts, gather in his breath.